Thursday, April 01, 2010

Ads Give Frightning Glance Into The Inner Lives of Social Networkers

These sort of "look at great things you could be texting RIGHT NOW" ads have been popular for a while, but I found some items in this specific campaign by...uh, blackberry, I think?...particularly disturbing.

So it seems that Mr. Brandon Childress has posted the following as his status update: "about to close a big deal, which makes me a big deal. Ha ha."

This is the most depressing status update I've ever read. Let's break it down.

What we have here is a young man (his name is Brandon so he can't be over 27) who has found success beyond his years. He's making deals. He's closing deals. Big deals.

But who cares, Brandon? Who really cares? Do your friends care? Why do you feel the need to qualify your success with a distancing, deadpan "Ha ha."? Are you afraid your command of the capatalist system will alienate you from your friends who are stuck in dead-end office jobs, but spend their weekends trying to put together art-openings at the local tapas bar?

That pointedly unenthusiastic (but carefully capitalized) "Ha ha." puts everything that's come before it in an ironic light - in the grand scheme of things, Brandon knows his deal is not a big deal, and neither is he. He craves recognition for his achievments, but all he can do is stick his little message in a glass bottle of irony and fling it into the sea of facebook, hoping someone will see it and reply with a sincere note of approval. All he's going to get though is messages from his snotty friends saying "dislike".

Meanwhile, Bryan Johnson is trying to dispose of a body and is compelled to talk about it in his away message, unable to resist the serial killer's urge to clue the public into his crimes.